The term “microcode” is generally understood, and is used herein, to refer to or to describe the lowest-level instructions that directly control a computer processor. For example, a single machine-language instruction typically translates into several microcode instructions. Microcode generally has a direct correspondence between a bit location and a particular set of gates. It is to be appreciated that microcode is distinct and quite different from firmware. It is further appreciated that many microprocessors, for example, reduced instruction set computers (RISC) microprocessors, may not use microcode.
The term “machine language” is generally understood to refer to or to describe another level of computer instructions, above microcode. Machine language instructions generally correspond directly to assembly language statements.
The term “very long instruction word (VLIW)” is generally understood to refer to or to describe computer architectures that implement a form of instruction level parallelism. Similar to superscalar architectures, such computers typically use several execution units of the same type (e.g. two multipliers), which enable the processor to execute several instructions at the same time (e.g., two multiplications). The term can also refer to instructions used by such processors.